History researcher Anil Dhir has urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to convert the house of Gandhian freedom fighter and Sarvodaya leader Mohammed Baji into a museum at Nabarangpur as a befitting tribute to the man who died recently at the age of 102.
“The house where Baji stayed has his old furniture, Charkha and personal habiliments and memorabilia of the early years. He had shown me the loft where a hidden hand operated printing
press had been kept to print pamphlets. The house was a den of the Satyagrahis all along the freedom struggle. It had been raided by the police many times and Baji had been arrested and kept in jail. Eminent luminaries including Jayapraksh Narayan, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Biju Patnaik, Mahadev Desai, Thakar Bapa, Binode Kanungo, Acharya Harihar Das, Godabarish Mishra, Laxman Naik, Sadasiv Tripathy, CF Andrews, JV Kothari, Malati Devi, Rama Devi and Sarala Devi have stayed at this place,” said Dhir, adding, “The Government of Odisha should also make a formal request to the
Ministry of Posts for issuing a commemorative postage stamp on Baji.
Besides, Dhir also requested the CM to convert the Old Jail, where Baji had been imprisoned many times, into a museum.
Dhir said Baji’s nephew, with whom he was staying at the last part of his life, is too willing to convert the house into a museum.
Notably, Baji was a close associate of tribal civil rights activist Laxman Nayak and was injured in police firing during the 1942 movement when 29 tribals were killed while protesting before the Mathili police station in Malkangiri district.
He had joined the Indian National Congress in 1936. During the Quit India Movement, he was jailed.